Monday, May 18, 2009

Beginning Mileage: 113,936

Now that I'm off of my weekend, my driving habits are considerably more, shall we say, boring. Other than commuting and errands, I'm rarely venturing out of the daily routine. While it does give the car a nice breather, I certainly do not have a short commute. The miles are still piling on.

I got gas yesterday, which has become a bit more of a shock to the wallet. Since the Volvo was made in 1996, it's fuel economy isn't quite what it would be if I were driving a newer vehicle. However, I would have to fill up my car 61 times per month to make up the cost difference between the average car payment, and the miniscule $7.00 extra it costs me to fill the 16 gallon tank from what a 12 gallon tank would cost. Right now I'm at four. I'd have to drive an additional 21,000 miles per month in order to be there. I don't think that's very likely...in order to pull that off I'd have to average 90 miles per hour for eight hours a day, every single day of the month. It's just not going to happen.

When you drive an older car, a couple quarts of oil should be a constant companion. I realized today when I was filling the car with gas, I was out. So, on top of the $37.18 for gas, I had a $9.01 expense for oil. Just before I started this blog I had a complete upper engine rebuild done. Since that was done, I'm down to losing about 1/5 of a quart every 1500 miles. Before I was losing a quart every 600. Like most older cars, I assume if my car isn't leaking oil, it's probably out.

One part of my commute in particular is exceptionally rough on my, and everyone else's car who drives that stretch of road. US 50 in both directions between the 7100 and VA 28 is a barren strait of 1970's strip malls, extremely poorly timed stoplights, and even more poorly maintained road surfaces. The potholes on this stretch of road have their own potholes. It's torture for any suspension. I got the Volvo aligned last month, only to have it knocked out of alignment on this road three days later.

My recommendation is: if at all possible, avoid roads such as this at all cost. It will cost more to get your car realigned once a month than it will cost in gas and time to go around.